CF-19 mk4 retrofits and recovery

Howdy all!

I was wondering about the better display release latch on the mk5, is it retrofittable to the mk4? ie, what are the differences in the casing in the surrounding areas?
It it's possible, what would the spare part number be, and how expensive might it be?

A second issue arose when the local dealer was unwilling to part with information about recovery disks, has there ever been a recovery dvd for 64bit windows 7 for the mk4?
Also, since when did the computers start to use recovery partitions instead of / in addition to the recovery dvd's? I ask this because our FD's mk5 should (afaik) have a recovery partition, but has none since it has been fitted by a SSD by the toughbook dealer.

I understood that discs might be available, at some $price with a very long delivery time. Hence I would like to find a better source for the discs or images or information how to recreate the recovery partitions.

Best regards,
OH2FTU, Martin

 

I see not difference in them from the MK1 to the MK5

I think they started this with the MK4 . If your HDD was replaced then it might not have a recovery partition

If you live in the USA then you need to call Heartland Services. For $35.00 shipped next day shipping...that fast enough :thumbsup:

 

Oh, that's affordable. Too bad I'm in Finland, ie. no backlit nordic keyboards are available

The release latch is different on the MK5, It locks in the released position until one rotates the display thus enabling onehanded usage. Very handy - pun unintended

Also, has someone come across Nordic backlit keyboards?

I do have a two nordic keyboards on my now obsolete CF18's, but I can't yet see as to why not try find a backlit version..

 

Now I never noticed that until now...I just held it until I had it turned

 

"thus enabling onehanded usage"
woot !
:laugh:

 

Is there any known way to recreate the recovery partition? I have one mk4 and one mk5 that both could use the recovery partition.
This of course, without interfering with the current install..

 

From your first post above: "Also, since when did the computers start to use recovery partitions instead of / in addition to the recovery dvd's? I ask this because our FD's mk5 should (As far as I know) have a recovery partition, but has none since it has been fitted by a SSD by the toughbook dealer"...
One avenue would be to clone your working system onto another hard drive & caddy. I would obtain a caddy and put in the hard drive of your choice, and then use software such as Acronis to make a bootable image of your current system, and then put her on the new caddy and hard drive. I've done this on the MK2's and it works quite nicely. There must be a Heartland equivalent for your area, that you could order a recovery image for your system. The dealer that sold you the original system, and put in a SSD might even have the hard drive available to pop into another caddy. Best regards.

 

Some versions of Acronis can create a recovery partition.

 

Acronis Rocks....get version 2015 if possible

 

When I got my CF-53 I booted it first with Acronis and made two clones of the drive on some old 40GB drives. I was primarily interested in trying 64 bit Windows and wanted to be able to go back to 32 bit. Once you select that option there's no going back as far as I can tell. Your restore partition is one or the other. Booting with the Acronis disk lets you copy the drive before you make the choice.
CAP

 

Hi,
Yes, I have made an image of
a) the original drive that came with the computer (including factory loaded Win7 de) - I think I should check this out just once more.
b) The current win7 install, pre and post of my added software installations.

I use Macrium reflect, but they're "all the same" anyway.

It seems like I would be looking for an image of the boot sector and recovery partition. I do have the capability to host FTP or similar for this.

-Martin

 

Doesn't your image of the original drive have the boot sector and recovery partition?

 

No, no recovery partition as I can see. It has a "recovery" partition that is 300MB - I reckon that won't have the necessary files to recover and reinstall with 64bit.

Furthermore, the operating system is in German But I did manage to check for the recovery dvd creation utility - it's not there. However, there are some hidden folders under c:\util - namely recovery and retools.

I did manage to recover the image.wim from the non-working recovery dvd (for win7 32bit) - and load it to the disk with windows PE (and ImageX).
But still - it was 32bit and no recovery disk creation utility.

As such, I'm looking for information about the win7 64bit recovery partition image and/or creation of recovery dvd . I would rather not order a whole DVD overseas, and the local Panasonic representative was not happy to do so either. I would probably have to pay for shipping too.

While I do have a working win7 64bit install, it seems to have some bugs with the touch screen - hence the desire to have a recovery dvd to do a "proper" install.

 

Here from the owners manual....

 

Shawn: Can't tell if that would work or not. Probably not.
I'm currently making a running image of the MK5. The recoverypartition is a whopping 40GB with 22GB used. The whole shebang is about 70GB.
So I was wrong, there was a recovery partition after all on the MK5. And it has the tool to make a recovery dvd.
I'll look into the options and utility to see what can be done.
Virtualizing the thing is a bit tedious.

Nonetheless. Found a source for a MK4 win7x64 recovery dvd for $50 + shipping $100. So I'm open to offers if someone would order one from Heartlands and mail it
Naturally, I'll cover expenses for mailing it, say $25 via paypal?

 

pm sent......

 

I got the recovery dvd sorted out (thanks Shawn).

Now I'm wondering if I should fit the unit with a separate gps or not.
The F5521gw has GPS and it works, might be a bit slow - but it's there and it came for free.

I do have a CF-18 antenna which I bought years ago - and haven't put it into use.

Will there be any advantages on getting
a) a faster wwan card with separate gps-antennaconnector (ie. Sierra MC7710)?
b) a separate gps-module, tufftech or OEM?

I'm using gpsgate for now, so no need for extra gps's as it can split the data.

The F5521gw just seems a bit unreliable with the gps when looking what the GpsGateServer has logged.

Best regards,
Martin

 

If you want a separate GPS module then go with tufftech. many of us are using his now.

 

Question is, how often do you use or "need" gps?
If it's a regular basis then get a separate gps.